Quote

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

Harlan Ellison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Harlan Ellison
Age: 84 †
Born: 1934
Born: May 27
Died: 2018
Died: June 27
Film Critic
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Harlan Jay Ellison
Two
Hydrogen
Life
Stupidity
Elements
Stupid
Common
Funny
Universe
Science

More quotes by Harlan Ellison

Image
I have no mouth. And I must scream.
Harlan Ellison
Image
What I try to write about are the darkest things in the soul, the mortal dreads... The closer I get to the burning core of my being, the things which are most painful to me, the better is my work.
Harlan Ellison
Image
I cannot pay attention to what people say about my work. For me, personally, I am just this shards-and-ashes human being, who really gets upset when someone says something bad about me. If it's true, I cop to it. If I have any good qualities, it's that.
Harlan Ellison
Image
The trap into which all writers have, will, or should fall into, of writing The Great American Watchamacallit, is such an uncluttered and inviting one that from time to time I'm sure even the greatest have to pull themselves up short by the Shift key to remind themselves that it is story first that they should write.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven't been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.
Harlan Ellison
Image
For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. This gives me great hope for the human race.
Harlan Ellison
Image
The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
Harlan Ellison
Image
The more you know, the more unflinchingly you deny casual beliefs and Accepted Wisdom when it flies in the face of reality, the more carefully you observe the world and its people around you, the better chance you have of writing something meaningful and well-crafted.
Harlan Ellison
Image
You must never be afraid to go there.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Thus, from admiration of one wise and innocent child, and from a misheard remark, the process that not even Aristotle could codify was triggered. Where do you get your ideas? I purposely mishear things.
Harlan Ellison
Image
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
Harlan Ellison
Image
The real story of our times is seldom told in the horse-puckey-filled memoirs of dopey, self-serving presidents or generals, but in the outrageous, demented lives of guys like Lenny Bruce, Giordano Bruno, Scott Fitzgerald - and Paul Krassner. The burrs under society's saddle. The pains in the ass.
Harlan Ellison
Image
With the Internet, the greatest disseminator of bad data and bad information the universe has ever known, it's become impossible to trust any news from any source at all, because it's filtered through this crazy yenta gossip line. It's impossible to know anything.
Harlan Ellison
Image
In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.
Harlan Ellison
Image
When belief in a god dies, the god dies.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don't known how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off. He grinned sheepishly. That's ridiculous! murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. Check your watch. And then he went into his office, going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktock Man. Get stuffed, the Harlequin replied.
Harlan Ellison
Image
They change scapegoats at the networks more regularly than some people change socks.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.
Harlan Ellison